Katie-Jo Luxton is the Global Conservation Director for the RSPB, leading the charities’ mission to save species, protect habitats and restore landscapes to help end the nature and climate emergency, in the UK and internationally, with the Birdlife Partnership.  She started in this role in November 2021 and prior to that had been the RSPB Cymru Director for 12 years, leading environmental advocacy at the Welsh Parliament/ Senedd and driving forward major landscape scale restoration projects such as the Celtic Rainforest Partnership and the Living Levels Partnership in Gwent.

In the earlier part of her career Katie-jo worked the CAP, agri-environment policy and Common Land legislation and is passionate about the role that farming can play in restoring nature. Having grown up with a farming background herself, she feels strongly that farmers and conservationists have far more than unites them than divides them. She is married with two daughters and in what leisure time that leaves her she enjoys walking, nature, allotment gardening, live music and travel.

With a membership of more than 1.1 million, the RSPB manage 222 nature reserves in the UK covering an area of over 158,751 hectares, including large areas of upland and lowland farmland, providing a home to over 18,500 species.